«The jade? Now, that’s a funny thing. I found it.»
She reached a hand out for it.
«May I?»
«Certainly,» said Peter.
He watched her face as she picked it up and held it in both hands, carefully, as he had held it.
«You found this?»
«Well, I didn’t exactly find it, Mary. It was given to me.»
«A friend?»
«I don’t know.»
«That’s a funny thing to say.»
«Not so funny. I’d like to show you the—well, the character who gave it to me. Have you got a minute?»
«Of course I have,» said Mary, «although I’ll have to hurry. Mother’s canning peaches.»
They went down the slope together, past the barn, and crossed the creek to come into the pasture. As they walked up the pasture, he wondered if they would find it there, if it still was there—or ever had been there.
It was.
«What an outlandish thing!» said Mary.
«That’s the word exactly,» Peter agreed.
«What is it, Mr. Chaye?»
«I don’t know.»
«You said you were given the jade. You don’t mean …»
«But I do,» said Peter.
They moved closer to the machine and stood watching it. Peter noticed once again the shine of it and the queer sensation of being able to see into it—not very far, just part way, and not very well at that. But still the metal or whatever it was could be seen into, and that was somehow uncomfortable.
Mary bent over and ran her fingers along its top.
«It feels all right,» she said. «Just like porcelain or—»
The machine clicked and a flagon lay upon the grass.
«For you,» said Peter.
«For me?»
Peter picked up the tiny bottle and handed it to her. It was a triumph of glassblower’s skill and it shone with sparkling prismatic color in the summer sunlight.
«Perfume would be my guess,» he said.
She worked the stopper loose.
«Lovely,» she breathed and held it out to him to smell.
It was all of lovely.
She corked it up again.
«But, Mr. Chaye …»
«I don’t know,» said Peter. «I simply do not know.»
«Not even a guess?»
He shook his head.
«You just found it here.»
«I was out for a walk—»
«And it was waiting for you.»
«Well, now …» Peter began to object, but now that he thought about it, that seemed exactly right—he had not found the machine; it had been waiting for him.
«It was, wasn’t it?»
«Now that you mention it,» said Peter, «yes, I guess it was waiting for me.»
Not for him specifically, perhaps, but for anyone who might come along the path. It had been waiting to be found, waiting for a chance to go into its act, to do whatever it was supposed to do.
For now it appeared, as plain as day, that someone had left it there.
He stood in the pasture with Mary Mallet, farmer’s daughter, standing by his side—with the familiar grasses and the undergrowth and trees, with the shrill of locust screeching across the rising heat of day, with the far-off tinkle of a cowbell—and felt the chill of the thought within his brain, the cold and terrible thought backgrounded by the black of space and the dim endlessness of time. And he felt, as well, a reaching out of something, of a chilly alien thing, towards the warmth of humanity and Earth.
«Let’s go back,» he said.
They returned across the pasture to the house and stood for a moment at the gate.
«Isn’t there something we should do?» asked Mary. «Someone we should tell about it?»
He shook his head. «I want to think about it first.»
«And do something about it?»
«There may be nothing that anyone can or should do.»
He watched her go walking down the road, then turned away and went back to the house.
He got out the lawn mower and cut the grass. After the lawn was mowed, he puttered in the flowerbed. The zinnias were coming along fine, but something had gotten into the asters and they weren’t doing well. And the grass kept creeping in, he thought. No matter what he did, the grass kept creeping into the bed to strangle out the plants.
After lunch, he thought, maybe I’ll go fishing. Maybe going fishing will do me—
He caught the thought before he finished it.
He squatted by the flowerbed, dabbing at the ground with the point of his gardening trowel, and thought about the machine out in the pasture.
I want to think about it, he’d told Mary, but what was there to think about?
Something that someone had left in his pasture—a machine that clicked and laid a gift like an egg when you patted it.
What did that mean?
Why was it here?
Why did it click and hand out a gift when you patted it?
Response? The way a dog would wag its tail?
Gratitude? For being noticed by a human?
Negotiation?
Friendly gesture?
Booby trap?
And how had it known he would have sold his soul for a piece of jade one-half as fine as the piece it had given him?
How had it known a girl would like perfume?
He heard the running footsteps behind him and swung around and there was Mary, running across the lawn.
She reached him and went down on her knees beside him and her hands clutched his arm.
«Johnny found it, too,» she panted. «I ran all the way. Johnny and that Smith boy found it. They cut across the pasture coming home from fishing …»
«Maybe we should have reported it,» said Peter.
«It gave them something, too. A rod and reel to Johnny and a baseball bat and mitt to little Augie Smith.»
«Oh, good Lord!»
«And now they’re telling everyone.»
«It doesn’t matter,» Peter said. «At least, I don’t suppose it matters.»
«What is that thing out there? You said you didn’t know. But you have some idea. Peter, you must have some idea.»
«I think it’s alien,» Peter reluctantly and embarrassedly told her. «It has a funny look about it, like nothing I’ve ever seen or read about, and Earth machines don’t give away things when you lay a hand on them. You have to feed them coins first. This isn’t—isn’t from Earth.»
«From Mars, you mean?»
«Not from Mars,» said Peter. «Not from this solar system. We have no reason to think another race of high intelligence exists in this solar system and whoever dreamed up that machine had plenty of intelligence.»
«But …not from this solar system …»
«From some other star.»
«The stars are so far away!» she protested.
So far away, thought Peter. So far out of the reach of the human race.
Within the realm of dreams, but not the reach of hands. So far away and so callous and uncaring. And the machine—
«Like a slot machine,» he said, «except it always pays in jackpots and you don’t even need a coin. That is crazy, Mary. That’s one reason it isn’t of this Earth. No Earth machine, no Earth inventor, would do that.»
«The neighbors will be coming,» Mary said.
«I know they will. They’ll be coming for their handouts.»
«But it isn’t very big. It could not carry enough inside it for the entire neighborhood. It does not have much more than room enough for the gifts it’s already handed out.»
«Mary, did Johnny want a rod and reel?»
«He’d talked of practically nothing else.»
«And you like perfume?»
«I’d never had any good perfume. Just cheap stuff.» She laughed a little nervously. «And you? Do you like jade?»
«I’m what you might call a minor expert on it. It’s a passion with me.»
«Then that machine …»
«Gives each one the thing he wants,» Peter finished for her.
«It’s frightening,» said Mary.